The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of apparatus for the removal, accompanied by simultaneous turning of cut-to-length hot strand sections, from the run-out or delivery roller tables of a multistrand continuous casting installation for metals, especially steel, onto a laterally arranged cooling bed with the aid of pivotal levers equipped with receiver means for receiving the strand sections.
With a state-of-the-art cooling bed strand sections are individually taken-over by means of pivotal levers and transferred to a higher situated cooling bed. The cooling bed grate is extended over the roller tables and possesses for each strand track or path of travel pivotable flaps which, during the upward rocking of the individual strand sections, are upwardly pressed by the latter, and thus, free for the individual strand sections the path along the grate. The strand sections are guided along arcuate-shaped guides, opening at the cooling bed plane, upon the cooling bed grate, and they are turned through an angle of 90.degree. . A cooling bed-pushing device thereafter displaces the strand section into an outfeed device. This equipment is associated with the drawback that there is required for each strand its own pivot mechanism, which, in turn, renders the installation and equally also the additional cooling bed-pusher device, more expensive and more prone to malfunction.
With another prior art multistrand continuous casting installation there is located below the level of the outfeed or transfer roller table a first transverse transport device composed of an endless transport chain, which merges with a cooling bed arranged laterally of the outfeed device. With the aid of pivotal levers operatively associated with each strand and rotatably mounted between the level of the roller table and the cooling bed, and which pivotal levers are equipped with receiver means for displacement of the strand sections from the roller table, it is possible to individually downwardly pivot or rock the cut-to-length strand section and to deposit such strand section, which by virtue of the construction of the receiver means experiences a rotation through 90.degree., upon a stationary transverse conveyor belt or band. This transverse conveyor belt or band then moves the strand in the direction of the cooling bed. As soon as the strand sections have reached the operable region or zone of a second transverse transport device, installed at the cooling bed and in the form of a transverse drag mechanism, they are conjointly dragged or pulled, along with the already there deposited strand sections, in the direction of the outfeed device. Such type outfeed equipment is quite complicated in its construction. The pivot levers which are operatively associated with the individual strands must be pivoted independently of one another, which, depending upon the number of strands, requires the use of a multiplicity of pivot mechanisms. There are required two transverse transport devices. These devices, in turn, appreciably increase the costs of the installation.